The climate policy intelligentsia gets all knotted up on key aspects of climate policy design from targets to coverage, to allocation to auction and then recycling. But, I would argue that none of this really matters. Instead, what matters is what emitters believe. And so the most important question in climate policy is [...]
Word on the street is new Federal targets will be announced at Copenhagen. Most likely PM Harper is playing follow the leader, literally following Obama to Copenhagen, So, expect harmonized targets with the US, which is -17% below 2005.
But anything can happen, cause target trash talk is way easier than action.
See here and here for an elaboration of this,
Ottawa will delay the release of climate regulations until there is a firm agreement on a global approach and clarity on how the United States intends to regulate emissions – which could take until late 2010,
and the Minister’s comments
“In the absence of an international understanding, and in [...]
A senior federal cabinet minister has added some long awaited clarity on where Canada is going with climate policy in advance of Copenhagen,
“I don’t think we’ve been ambiguous on this issue…”
(here)
This picture, and indeed the whole federal policy, is eerily paralleling the Bush administrations bold forays into climate policy … see post here
As [...]
Ok, so cap and trade with the US just got really interesting:
Canada to seek climate deal with Obama
Here
There was talk of this post election, including morphing the current intensity based system (in the Regularly Framework) to something with a hard or binding cap before 2015. Linking a national cap and trade program to the [...]
Apparently some shrooms can sequester more carbon as temperatures rise…
Because the fungi in the dry northern areas are off their feed, they process less of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, leaving more of it locked in the soil and less of it in the atmosphere, (here)
Well if only we could get some of these [...]
The Economist has an article on why Prime Minister Harper deserves a second mandate, but not a majority (here). Two ideas support this:
One a majority is not warranted for his stand on climate policy:
Simply to rubbish this [Dion’s carbon tax] as a “crazy” idea that would “screw everybody”, as Mr. Harper has done, [...]
A neat little piece of climate policy work was just released, albeit quietly, during the federal election. Nic Rivers and Mark Jaccard have been taking analytical jabs at various climate policies for a very long time. Their central theme has been to compare, from an analytical perspective, what government’s say they will achieve [...]
If one looks back over the carbon policy discussions in Canada credit for early action figures prominently. Simply, under cap and trade, some argue that they should receive credit for action initiated in the lead-up to implementation. The core argument is that in expectation of a future carbon constraint, early action was undertaken [...]
Design matters. Just take a look at Manitoba. The government’s April 09, 2008 budget introduced a carbon tax on coal of $10/tonne starting in 2011. The casual observer, depending on their particular bias would say either: it is not enough; it is a good start; or why introduce another punitive tax? So, [...]
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